The Tabernacle is up and running, the offerings have been established, and now it is time to ordain the priests. God has already decreed that the priesthood will be composed of Aaron and his sons, which leads me to a question. Why was Moses not ordained? After all, the priests were meant to be the link between man and God, and Moses was the guy that God talked to. I'm not sure of the answer to this, but I think it is interesting nevertheless. Right from the beginning, God did not talk only to the priests, and he had work too for the unordained. I have been blessed enough to be taught by some wonderful ministers, but I believe there is also much wisdom to be found outside of the Church and it's a shame to ignore it. Look at C.S. Lewis. He was an English professor, yet he also become one of the greatest Christian evangelists and writers of all time. Or take my mum. She's had no formal religious training, but she has taught me so much. Don't underesitmate the spiritual knowledge or wisdom of those around you - talk with them, debate with them, learn from them. You'll learn a lot. Don't underestimate yourself either - you may not be called to be a priest or a vicar or a minister or whatver you choose to call them, but there are countless other ways in which you can serve God, none of which are any less worthy.
And so onto the actual ordination. First, Aaron and his sons are arrayed in all their finery, and then both they and the Tabernacle are consecrated with oil. Next they bring a burnt offering, an ordination offering and a sin offering, because before they can serve God, they must make themselves clean. In the same way, we must put ourselves right with God before we can speak about Him or for Him to others. That doesn't mean we can't serve God until we are perfect - if we wait for that, we'll never get anything done - but it does mean we must keeping coming back to God to confess our sins and ask for forgiveness. If we want to spokespeople for God, we must live good lives and repent of our mistakes or we risk becoming hypocrites.
The ordination lasts seven days - sometimes there will be a period of preparation before we are ready to step out and do God's work - and then on the eighth day, the priests begin their work. They once again present a burnt offering and a sin offering to atone for their own sins and those of the people; then they call the community to bring a burnt offering and a fellowship offering because God will appear to them. Aaron presents the offerings as prescribed and blesses the people, then "the glory of the Lord appeared to all the people". God did not reserve Himself for an elite few like Moses, He wanted to share Himself with everyone. And He hasn't changed. He still wants to meet with every one of us and show us His might and His power and His beauty. When they saw Him, the people "shouted for joy and fell facedown". Sometimes when we experience God it can feel strange or even scary, often because He has something to say which we don't want to hear. But I think that most of the time, He just wants us to rejoice in His presence. In those moments, we should shout for joy like the Israelites, because there's nothing quite like experiencing the awesomeness that is God.
Things take a nasty turn though, when two of Aaron's sons, Nadab and Abihu, offer "unauthorised fire, contrary to the Lord's command" and are consumed and killed by fire from the Lord's presence. When we break God's laws, when we fail to serve Him properly, there are consequences. Not the consequences Nadab and Abihu faced, but consequences nonetheless. God won't zap us with a lightening bolt every time we put a foot wrong - you've probably noticed that hasn't happened to you yet, because under the new covenant of grace such punishments are obsolete - but it may be that our wrong choices cause ourselves harm, or hurt someone else, or damage a relationship. The old law relied on fear of punishment to keep people in line. It was "do this and don't do that or something bad will happen". It's not like that anymore, and we no longer have to fear the wrath of God, but that doesn't mean we can do what we like. Now we are called to be obedient out of love, because we want to keep ourselves and others from harm.
After the deaths of Nadab and Abihu, God tells Aaron "You must ditinguish between the holy and the common, between the clean and the unclean". The question of what is clean and what is unclean is addressed in later chapters (in fact, I believe I start the cleanliness laws tomorrow) so for now I will concentrate on the first part of God's decree - the separation of the holy and the common, the spiritual and the secular. God is in and part of everything, and cannot be separated from the everyday things of our lives. Nor, I believe, does He want to be. It may have been different under the old covenant, when the sin of the people meant they had to purify themselves before He could come near them, but now that we have been redeemed no such barriers exist. He is so close and so familiar that we can call Him Daddy, and we can meet with Him at any time and in any place. So if this isn't about putting God in a box, what is it about? Well, just before God talks about this the holy and the common, He tells Aaron that he and his sons must not drink wine when they go to the Tent of Meeting, and I think this may be the key. God wasn't saying the priests couldn't drink at all, just not on duty because it would cloud their minds and make it difficult for them to concentrate on Him. In the light of this, I think this distinction is about avoiding distractions in those times when we most closely and purposefully focus on God - during worship or meditation, for example. Think of it this way, anything which distracts us and takes our attention away from God is better kept for another time. That will be different for all of us, and it is up to us to work it out with God.
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